JSngry

Madame C.J. Walker O.J. Parham P.J. Clarke

Steve and Jayne were celebrity endorsers for years. RIP.

I think this is the first time I've ever seen Sonny make specific mention of the "interracial couple" thing. Sonny's seems to be really opening up to "looking back" in all kinds of ways....very interesting to see unfold.

He was on some of those later 70s Vanguard albums, wasn't he? Albeit not to good advantage, iirc, some "pop"-ish things like The Players or some such.

Factoring (no pun intended) in the absence of + sighs at the end of the first two lines, the real equation would be 1+1 x 0 +1 = 1+(1x0)+1=2, correct? Not? Is this money?

1? I think?

A Dame A Dane That Night Train Lane

John Scott Trotter Scott Baio They Bayou King http://www.trueachievements.com/The+Bayou+King.htm

What's it going to do to houses designed to hold things when there's less and less things for them to hold, and what's it going to mean to city planning and residential development paradigms when more and more people can live in more concentrated areas because they need smaller and smaller places because the have less and less stuff..or when they choose to be more isolated because the high tech equivalent of a tent with an outhouse will be just fine, and maybe give better views, at least. What would you do if all your shelves and cabinets and desks were no longer needed, what would that do to the look and feel of your house? Would you still want to live in it, or would it begin to seem like a place where old lives used to be lived in old ways by people who no longer live like that?

The Sterile Cuckoo Peter Boyle John Tyndall

oops/yikes!

This is the group that then evolved into the slightly more mainstream Conjunto Libre, correct?

Yeah, 3/7 is not a a bad deal even if he ends up being spare parts. I do wonder how this will affect the Rangers' long term development paths of some younger players/prospects, but as long as this is not a sign that the organization is sacrificing long-term goals for short term fan-sex to put seats in the seats while the current team continues to injure its way out of optimism for the second straight season, I can live with it. Although, I was glad to see Hamilton go when he did, and VERY glad that he landed on the Angles with such an absurd moneysuck of a deal, and although I do think he's going to be a case that aligns with the statistics about age/type/decline as a rule rather than an exception, but now that it looks like hopes for some good front end years from Choo ain't gonna happen, maybe there's more machinations being logisticised as we speak. But dude, for all but the hardcore Hamilton-inclined fan-types, there was no real joy when he left, and not too much that he's returning. Just too much of him and his game(s) was/is(?) broken like Humpty-Dumpty. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal!

Sounds like you should talk with Charles Gayle sometimes?

Anybody who has to get back to work at 8:15 on a Friday night is either a musician, a server, or a professional concert leaver. .

Angels willing to eat $68 million? And get nothing in return? Arte is...that man has more dollars than sense! http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/sources-texas-rangers-to-take-on-less-than-7-million-of-josh-hamilton-deal.html/

Congratulations on the book! For what it's worth in the "historical footnote" column, I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran (1950s-early 1970) and Concordia Press(?) put out a series of books about "modern life", one of which was called Encountering Jazz And Popular Music, or something like that, from the mid-late 1960s. My pastor let me borrow it. It was the usual pipe-smoking liberal-conservative "joyous noise" thing overall, but it did address, at least superficially, the issues of race, drugs, and music biz economics in terms of both cause and "christian response" in a not unrealistic manner, which I found a bit surprising, to be honest with you. And of course, it loved all the jazz liturgies and masses and such that were coming into bloom at the time...not just justified by faith, now justified by jazz too, or something like that. In no way was it a scholarly tome such as this, but it might be worth noting that such things did exist in contemporaneous WASP-y times, places, and church libraries.

We all are wishing for that, Dan. Arte Moreno is a real piece of work, I'd like for him and Jerry Jones to get a room, and then have a contest to see who can get the other one pregnant, and have to keep trying until either one succeeds or that both die from trying. Now that's a wish! As for the Josh Hamilton wish, yes, at least one reboundy window of glory is indeed to be wished for, but as a co-worker of mine recently told me what his momma used to tell him about wishing - wish in one cup, piss in the other, and see which one fills up first. Horrible parenting, but not without its own wisdom. Here's a pretty sober assessment of the whole thing, one that takes a turn into Matthew Shipp vs Herbie Hancock land, with Ryan Rua as Matthew Shipp & Josh Hamilton as Herbie Hancock: I love it when all this interdisciplinary shit can be applied to everyday life. http://www.lonestarball.com/2015/4/25/8496027/josh-hamilton-trade-texas-rangers-angels

That Jerry Jones will eventually kill everything within a 500 mile radius?

So, I leave the house for a great night out hearing modern classical music and I get back home to find out that Josh Hamilton is heading back to the Rangers? #SorryBaseballMyNutsAreNotThereForYouToKickThemAtYourEveryWhim

Holy shit, talk about a night of music...let me see if I can type all this correctly without giving up.. The doors did not open until the "performance experience" began, which was, ok, maybe "attitude for "classical" but...nothing new there for me, it happens at wedding receptions all the time, and Quartet Out was not at all averse to starting playing outside the room and then walking in on the audience. So..."cute". Whatever. The music played during all this was an electronic piece by Jonathan Harvey, Mortuous Plango, Vivos Voco. It was nice, but I felt I was being maybe being subject to a manipulated "mood" that I really didn't need to be manipulating into.I went there knowing what to expect, generally, they had me at "Berio", dig? During all this, the performers were seated on the front row, and once the piece stopped and everybody was seated/stopped talking/etc., the took the stage, and then shit started getting good in a big hurry. The program was presented in medleys of sorts, sometimes with a very unclear pause between the end of one piece and the beginning of another. That might have been a gimmick, but I didn't feel it like that, especially when the pieces were of a similar enough nature that it took a while to tell that, hey, this is not the same piece we started out with. That "de-objectifying" of composer/composition works for me (as does the more traditional presentation), because there's not really any pivot point to tell you to start "thinking" about any of it. You're "there" at all times, and it's either getting to you or it's not...kinda like putting Wynton on an Organissimo BFT, my god, what if don't know it's Wynton and actually you LIKE it. Anyway, the first set was two medleys of this nature: Medley #1.1 - An excerpt from Webern;s Three Bagatelles Eight Colors For String Quartet by Tan Dun I'm coming around on Webern, slowly but surely, and it helps me when I here it performed as here, with a lack of the..."angst" that I seem to get out of so many older performances. I get why that was the way it was, and I get that maybe being Relax And Enjoy It with Webern might not be a universally embraced notion, but..it's working for me at this point. The transition to the Tan Tun was less than immediately obvious, and I hadn't really looked at the program notes beforehand, but at some point I was like, whoa, this is not Webern, this is like...Chinese Webern or something...and in a delightfully "warm" way. I only know a little bit of Tan Dun's work, but the language used was a real headsnap, and the Parker Quartet was on it like white on rice (as they used to say). Totally, totally enjoyable music, and I definitely feel the need for some more Tan Dun. Medley #1.2 - Tawnie Olson - Meadowlark Tawnie Olson - The Blackbird at Evening James Wood - Deploration sur la Mort de Gerard Grisley Total loss here as to which was which or what or when, but from reading the program notes during intermission, it appears that the Wood was the focus of the medley, and there seems to have been a lot of math involved in the composition, but I didn't hear math, I hear from and development. There's almost always some math in music, it's a pretty shaky state of affairs when there's not, but if it's not the first thing I either hear or remember during/after, I'm happy. I was happy and still am. It also appears that Olson's works were two pieces for solo marimba (with and without electronic modification), and they were interesting (and expertly executed, Rosenbaum is one helluva player). Don't know how aggressively motivated to check out more of either of these composers, but I am in no way de-motivated, either, not at all, although...Wood more inviting than Olson, measurably so, in fact. Still - living composers, 21st Century compositions, if not now, when? Then there was the break, and they played a break tape. They played a break tape at a classical concert. They played a break tape at a classical concert and listed it in the program. It was music by Jeff Beck, John Lee Hooker, John Catler (who I though was Blood Ulmer until his math got obvious, which didn't take that long), and Radiohead. Gimmicky, perhaps, but if anybody on the stage was under 35, I'll eat Jimmy Durante's hat, and if anybody on it was under 30, I'll put bad ketchup on it before I do. So...this is not your grandfather's "classical music" in either content or attitude (which is all for the best, because I don't think either of my grandfathers had any classical music, although I'm told that my maternal grandfather enjoyed some fiddling for his own amusement). For some of y'all in Major Metropolitan Areas, this is probably old hat by now. For us/me here, not so much. Not sure if needed/effective (like I said, they had me at "Berio", I do NOT need any of tat, especially Jeff Beck playing "A Day In The Life", to stay for the second set), but...there it was. Second set was three medleys. Medley # 2.1 Harry Partch arr. Ben Johnston from Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales Olympos' Pentatonic. Luciano Berio - Naturale Familiar with Partch in a "general" sense, only recently have become introduced to Johnston, and...how much more time do I have left to learn about all these things...not enough, no matter how much it is. Sad if you want it to be, but also motivating as hell, and that's a good, happy thing. I feel like a hick with this music sometimes, at least relative to the personal experiences I've had with jazz (and party bands!...alas, not always the same thing...), but...we are where we are when we're there, or something. Anyway, onward. Berio...jesuschrist, Berio...how long was that piece,you say? Ohhh.... about six feet or so, I'd wager. HAR HAR HAR. But seriously... I don't know if violist Jessica Bodner gave anything resembling a "definitive" reading of the piece or not, but that's what's cool about stuff like this, I don't think it's been played/heard/processed enough by either player or listeners yet for there to ba a "definitive" ready yet, there's still alot of room left for interpretation (literally and figuratively). All I can tell you is that Bodner played the living shit out of it, Rosenbaum was right there with her, they were both right there with the taped vocal, and it gripped me in a way that had not yet occurred this evening. Not that the previous music, not that the other things had been "inferior", but just...Berio. Gottamn it, BERIO! People ask me sometimes, what do you want out of life, Jim, and right now, I'm thinking the correct answer might as well be "more Berio, please!" Medley #2.2 - Harry Partch arr. Ben Johnston from Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales Study on "Archyta's Enharmonic" Beethoven - Grosso Fuga This second Partch/Johnston thing was obviously microtonal (which was sort of a "theme" for the evening, although to what extent, or how much of that was Partch, how much Johnston, I have no idea. I dug it,though, short as it was. This whole area of microtonal mathematics...I don't know if I'm intellectually able to absorb the math, all I know is that the results are very pleasing to my ear far more often than not. again, so much more left to learn... And Beethoven. THAT guy. And THAT piece. Holy shit. Right from jump, it was like, wow, all this 20th/21st Century stuff that had come before, it's all here, right freaking here, just waiting to be dissected, isolated, magnified, everything. And even without that aspect...WHOA! Can't say that the Parker quartet gave it the "best" reading I've ever heard (unlike Berio, Beethoven has definitely been around long enough for there to have been some conclusions more or less drawn, but...you see how long that's taken, and still, maybe some significant wiggle room still to be discovered, perhaps?), but they got in there with it, and really, what else do you want out of a live performance? Some of the greatest music ever created re-created with a high level vim/vigor/vitality, hey, I'm happy. I was happy a lot during this gig. The Beethoven got them a Standing O from the older attendees (and discouragingly but perhaps not surprisingly, about 30-40% of the audience did not return after intermission), but they still had a little left on the program. Medley #2.3 - Webern - another piece from Six Bagatelles Frederic Rzewski - To The Earth Webern was again appealing...either I'm starting to "get it", maybe this is the type of the interpretation, maybe a little bit of both, who knows/care. Whatever. I heard it, and I dug it. That's enough. I know Rzewski mostly from his collaborations with Braxton, so really did not know what to expect out of this one. Turns out it was a solo percussion piece, only the percussionist is playing four tuned flower pots while simultaneously chanting reciting a "new age-y" poem to "Mother Earth", and ok, before you start puking/gagging, that's what I though when it started up, but soon realized that A) the flower pots were creating a nice gamelan-like effect; B) again, Rosenbaum is one hell of a player, he executed the very specific demands of the percussion part perfectly while also executing the at times cross-rhythmic vocals seamlessly; and most importantly for me C) This whole thing very quickly began to resemble a biblical Psalm in lyrical content, and we know that Psalms were meant to be sung (or at least, "sung") and probably had instrumental accompaniment. So is it really THAT goofy/ill-advised/whatever to have a "song of praise" accompanied by a pentatonic tuned gamelan-esque type sound? Not at all, I have to say, not at all. A fine line perfectly walked, imo. The theme of the whole presentation was explicitly "microtonality" in all of its manifestations, and the director of the series gave a little introductory "few words" in the lobby before the doors opened to the effect that "microtonality" is a scary word that scares people off by its association with coldness of math, etc. but that he was having lunch with one of the quartet members today and they told him that after playing this stuff for a whole that ALL music sounded microtonal now, and I think that was the point of the break tape, but...as I mentioned here a few days ago, one of the biggest rushes for me in hearing a traditional ensemble play the traditional repertoire is the thrill of hearing perfectly "in tune" passages. That's not how I've heard, ever, nor still. I've never not thought of pitch as malleable/interpretational, nor have I ever lived in a world where "non-traditional techniques" were in fact non-traditional to one degree or another. I grew up on big bands, hillbillies, rock (and roll), jazz, everything except "perfectly in tune". They tried to break me in school, and I tried to get broken, but, jeez, no going over to the other side on that one, the wiring is just not there. So, although I could relate to the intent of soothing potential anxieties (which didn't work all that well, based on how many people left at intermission), I could not relate to the need to even consider it being a need in the first place. But the sociology of the whole evening would have been interesting enough had the music not delivered. And the music most assuredly did deliver. However - fullest frontal affection to the guy for presenting this program, and allthewaymusicsexlove to the Parker Quartet and Ian Rosenbaum for knowing that suretheyright and for bringing it accordingly. Sorry for the lengthy post, but...it was an exciting night, and these are my immediate post-concert impressions, in full, file under "FWIW". At least you didn't have to ride home with me.